SMFCSD Board Meeting 2025-03-03

001I call to order this meeting of the stowman row Falls City School District Board of Education on March 3rd 2025 at 6:m East Jenkins here Meri here Shen here sudon here wind here please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance unes indis [Music] everything we do is designed to provide a future ready student- centered learning experience for every single child our strategic plan for 2021 through 2026 will help us accomplish this goal by considering every facet of a student's learning experience from curriculum to infrastructure to Wellness diversity and inclusion and everything in between as members of the Board of Education we serve as trustees therefore this is a business meeting being conducted in public not a public meeting we are grateful to serve an Engaged community and therefore encourage and respect input from citizens we

002expect that everyone present will behave in a manner consistent with the behavior we expect of our students we reserve the right to have those who do not comply removed from our meeting okay our first item of business tonight will be the public participation at this time in our agenda we invite citizens to share their concerns about items on today's agenda comments on on any items will be heard at this point in the meeting all comments must be directed to the entire board and be no longer than 3 minutes we will listen to and consider your remarks but there will be no conversation aside from clarifying questions if you are seeking a direct response or further information we ask that you submit your request in writing please begin your remarks with your first and last name

003good evening my name is Rachel Rell and I have children Ino so I was going over a lot of these policies that you guys have been discussing the last few meetings and um I just was hoping that you guys while discussing them tonight can maybe clarify a few things about policy 57 81 that is our parents Bill of Rights um in the opening paragraph I was happy to see that it recognizes that parents have the fundamental rights to make decisions for their kids um it goes on though to say parents have certain rights and using the word certain rights just kind of made me question what rights that might be not be included in this and what those would be um going further through the definitions they all look find um until a sexuality content

004um it describes what that is and then what it is not and is not um a b and c listed there C is the one that really cost my eye it says that um it's incidental references to sexual Concepts or gender ideology occurring outside of formal instruction or presentations on such top topics um and if that's not included in sexuality content I start asking myself what exactly does that mean so is that something that is outside of formal curriculum um what is the intent of even including that in there is that something like posters and flags in classrooms as a parent I guess I just didn't fully understand um what that meant and then it goes on to talk about when kids can um when they start to be taught sexual content and it says

005that they will not be taught this in grades kindergarten through third grade um as you guys I'm sure aware our buildings elementary schools are kindergarten through fourth grade so um I would like to know from the board what you guys plan on doing or how you would keep that content from our younger kids um they go ride the bus together together they go to school together they're in the same building so what's the plan to keep that information from the younger children um and finally I thought it was kind of interesting the school district Personnel will not directly or indirectly encourage a student to withhold from a parent information concerning the students mental emotional or physical health or wellbe being that's great I think that's awesome um that parents are included in all of this

006I was just wondering if you guys could maybe discuss about or I guess more in a formal public position like this what exactly that means like will that be told to us parents like if there's a conversation like further up where it's not formal curriculum how would that be told to us parents that something might have happened in class or might be going on in the school so can I just get some clarity on the question you asked so you had a concern that um and because I don't know what they teach in fourth grade as far as sexual sexuality content that you have a concern that if we are doing that in fourth grade are you wanting us to look at and look at this a little deeper and maybe we shouldn't be doing

007it in fourth grade since these fourth graders are interacting with the first second third can you stop the clock because I'm asking a question I think there was maybe about 30 seconds left on that um so is that what you're asking yes I I was just concerned with that because actually um this does involved me I have a fourth grader as well as a kindergartener and what my fourth grader might be learning um maybe more appropriate for her age level but definitely not kindergarten first second even third still um and how that information really would be kept from the younger kids if fourth graders are TP this material but according to this policy I would be notified first either way correct and then you had your other question was in regards to how our uh

008how our teachers counselors are kind of who who confirms or verifies that they're staying within the boundaries of this guideline yes I was just hoping for some clarification on that because it does say that they will not directly or indirectly encourage a student either way but further up when we were talking about definitions there it talks about what is not considered sexuality content and if the school is not considering that sexuality content what I guess I'm just confused in what that even means because if something's not considered that but it clearly is by calling it um gender ideology and sexual Concepts see where I'm a little confused on that like they're calling it sexuality content but saying that that part's not included in sexuality content so if it's not what why you know I guess

009that's what I'm saying so if it's not formal curriculum and that's just my assumption too it's not very clear in that if they're even talking about formal C we need to move on to the next comment I just I want to clarify currently the sexuality content is in fifth grade I'm reading from the policy that you guys have been discussing it lists here grades kindergarten through third grade will not rece receive sexuality content so that's great that right now currently in the fifth grade so it's not in any of the elementary buildings and that's reassuring but I guess the policy would allow it in younger grades so my question to you guys were if it were to be taught younger which the policy would allow how would you prevent that material from being over and

010if it's never allowed in fourth grade maybe the language has to be changed to reflect that thank you thank thank you good evening Jason Whitaker I'm here to express concern about District's finances and know we're going to have a discussion this evening that I look forward hearing my concern however is in regard to the board and its oversight over the finances and uh potentially the lack thereof um so since 2023 the board has approved at least four different check registers for the wrong year um that's evident within the first 15 seconds of opening that register you can see what year it is that's four different times five people voted five nothing to approve a register that was for the not for the year that you were looking at the second issue is relation to the

011spending freeze um the treasurer gave the board a financial Outlook in September of 2024 that showed under $3 million in cash available in January and February there were 10 meetings of the board between that first report and the time when the spending freeze went on uh from a a a transparency and communication standpoint I don't understand why that wasn't discussed at any moment because every single month the treasurer was giving the board an updated forecast and every single month in September October November December every single one of those showed a situation that ultimately resulted in a spending freak I'm also concerned after a couple of public records requests to find that at least one member of the board was asking a week after the spending free was imp implemented whether there was one these are

012this is not micromanagement of the district that is a big issue that's never happened I think I think the it was indicated during that meeting that no one could recall the last time there was a spending freeze if ever um and the fact that that was never discussed uh from a transparency uh standpoint is is difficult to ascertain um and so I would just ask that perhaps further examination of those issues and the lack of communication the lack of transparency would be discussed hopefully during today's discussion thank you hi I'm Susan Meer and I'm here tonight I'd like to compliment the board on all the hard work they've been doing and dealing with all these tough subjects you know it's part of our life now um my kids went through Stow schools and they're off

013now on their own but um I really think uh you're doing a great job and I know it's been a tough job lots of contentious issues I also want to note that I went to a school that was first through 8th grade we had sex said in seventh grade and I'm sure it didn't affect the younger kids thank you I have a point of order um the president had made a comment here said comments on the on non-agenda items will be heard later in the meeting and I don't I don't see that's that's not what I read I said comments on any items can be heard at this time because we decided to have one comment section rather than two tonight when we talked about it last week so I was about to remind the

014audience that if there is anyone who would like to make a public comment tonight we did reduce it to this single um opportunity for public comment I know folks are used to the two options right well I'm just reading what's on the agenda so um yeah I think the the language on the agenda just got copy pasted over unfortunately from a previous agenda what I read was that comments on any topic are welcome at this time and two since I have the floor I do have a statement before we move on here um due to the fact that I'm constantly muzzled and censored in my continued attempts to add topics and discussion items you're out of order if you would like to add an item to the agenda to discuss this you may move to

015do so no I I made a point of order I I have you are discussing an item that is not on our agenda no this is not an item agenda this is my personal so let me get this straight so you're telling you're telling an elected board official that they Cann not make a statement at a board meeting I am saying that if we would like to tell an elected board off a discussion item to our agenda you may move to do so no that's that's not the point of my of my um statement Mr Sheen the president controls the order of the meeting we're moving on to our next item which is item five I made a point of order you if you I want to get this so so a sitting board member

016cannot make a cannot make a statement at a board meeting to our first item of discussion are you telling me which is the board protocol unless you have a motion to add something to this agenda no I have a statement to make as a sitting board member I am free to make a statement at a sitting board member of the agenda or the I have no choice but to go directly to the public through any means I decide to share the thoughts ideas and concerns about issues and items the public asks and inquires about concerning the board dist the school district follow an agenda if you would my addition ideas and suggestions I want to include on the agenda are always questioned and scrutinized but never included as an elected board member I am not

017required to schedule private meetings with admins to discuss these questions or concerns but rather I wish of order you would like to move to include this item in our discussion session of the board president whose responsibility is just to prepare the agenda to dictate or control with some imaginary veto power what's on the agenda we will discuss our meeting agenda setting process that is on our agenda sir now moving on to our board protocol um just as in introduction to this uh we had a training in November at which our osba trainer suggested uh that we put together a protocol that um explores and uh kind of codifies our behavior during meetings um so she gave us a couple of examples and based upon those examples I um put together this draft um before we

018kind of dig into the draft language which I definitely want everyone's um input on I I just wanted to kind of introduce this with a little bit of an explanation of what Schoolboard members do uh the broadest definition of school board's role is that it acts as the governance team for the school district it is important that the board is a positive and responsible liaison between the school district and the community school boards adopt policy and oversee the district's policy manual thus we were discussing policy tonight the board's most important role is to employ the superintendent and Treasurer and work closely with them to establish and set policy vision and long range goals and be account for the phisal health and opportunities provided to the district students and families school board members need to be

019strong District ambassadors to the community and work to build public support and understanding of public education remember individual board members do not hold Authority unless it has been delegated to them the board's legal Authority is held by the governing body as a whole and is exercised through voting and public meetings in terms of board member responsibilities the role and function of board members often are Miss interpreted by the public the board is a policymaking body and members are the chief advisers to the superintendent on community attitudes board members do not manage the day-to-day operations of a school district they see to it that the system is managed well by professional administrators board members do not evaluate staff other than the superintendent Treasurer nor do they typically become involved in employment interviews other than those of

020the superintendent business manager and Treasurer board members may be consulted during the hiring process process for other positions such as assistant superintendent what a school board member doesn't do the role and function of board members are often misinterpreted by the public and in some cases by board members themselves the board is a policy-making body and members are the chief advisers to the superintendent on community attitudes board members do not manage the day-to-day operations of a school district they see to it that the system is managed well by professionals board members are not education professionals they do not evaluate staff other than the superintendent and Treasurer nor do they become involved in employment interviews other than those of the superintendent business manager and Treasurer board members may be consulted during the hiring process for other positions

021so that's from the osba just a quick overview of our job here which is governance rather than day-to-day operations um in terms of the protocol uh what I would like to do is um address each section separately um but the overall purpose of a protocol is for the purpose of enhancing collaboration and encouraging consensus among members of the Board of Education and between the board and administration we the members of stowman R Fall City School District board of education do hereby publicly commit individually and collectively to the following operating protocol so that's just the introductory paragraph uh does anyone have any questions concerns or suggested revisions to that introduction okay so the second paragraph involves um starts with we strongly believe that students interests are first priority as a board of education does anyone have

022any questions concerns suggest rions for this paragraph no okay great the next paragraph We believe that in order to act in the best interest of students we must respect the law board policy and the confidentiality of privileged information any questions concerns suggested revisions to this paragraph okay can we go a minute to go over the whole thing yeah is your did your attention to read the whole thing out loud or just intr I mean I wanted to make sure that there weren't any changes people were suggesting and then if when you're speaking can you speak into the mic so everyone could hear I'm sorry thank you I'll make it a little closer sorry so basically the remainder of that paragraph is we will access resources expert opinions and training to ensure that our actions comply

023with the law and board policy where a board member May disagree with policy they will seek to engage in discussion and follow procedures for considering policy change rather than acting contrary to that policy while much of our work is and should be public record we will not share confidential or privileged information with those not on the senior leadership team when a Community member requests access to specific information we will guide them to follow established District procedures for requesting public records and other information any questions concerns revisions nice okay are we ready to move on to the next paragraph then yeah okay uh the next paragraph We believe that a board is most effective when its members commit to attend and prepare for meetings we will attend all board meetings in so far as possible and

024we are each responsible for becoming informed on any and all issues coming before the the board we will be prepared to discuss Andor act upon all agenda items and we will provide in advance any research or documents which we plan to site during discussion with fellow board members the superintendent and the treasurer when proposing agenda items board members will be prepared to dis to address questions of existing policy and practice including discussing suggestions of any changes in policy or process with relevant District leadership and questions of relevance to the board's govern role these preparations will ensure that the senior leadership team may come to the table prepared for productive efficient and beneficial deliberation any questions concerns suggested edits okay the next paragraph We Believe communication and transparency are essential we recognize that good timely relevant

025and consistent communication regarding School District issues is extremely important we will seek to facilitate ongoing and consistent communication between the board superintendent and Treasurer and its different diverse stakeholders and to be personally responsive to all colleagues when appropriate we will strive to anticipate issues that may become important or sensitive to our school district and our community and to address these issues with the best interest of the students at the Forefront anything on this one no okay [Applause] we will work to follow the chain of command the last stop not the first should be the board we agree to follow the chain of command and to encourage others to do so feedback from staff is important and board Communications with staff will follow applicable board policy with the basic line of communication being through the superintendent

026while the board is eager to listen to its School community members each Community inquiry is to be referred to the person who can properly and most expeditiously address the issue likewise when board members have a concern we recognize that our first step should be our superintendent and or treasur rather than other School Employees or contractors I I just want to add a point on this add a point on this because I know that it's come up um in question from um other board members on following uh board policy on communication um with other admin and I just want to make sure um I researched board policy for all six districts in the six six District compact as well as akan some at ESC and all of them follow the same policy that we have which

027is um the chain of command going through superintendant and Treasurer and for board members not to seek out information directly through other administrators or um staff to the school um you know unless this unless such directed by the superintendent so that that policy is fairly standard across districts correct it's not anything we put in place it's been in place as long as that I could understand and it's common across every District that I looked up so it's nothing that we've done so that for where others reference that's um policy 01481 I believe that we were referencing boards staff Communications U Mr Sheen I know you had some questions about this did you have any comments on uh I do have on 14148 uh first of all there's no legal references to this uh the board

028doesn't have legal authority to limit my speech and this policy frankly is worthless and has no binding power and as it says here opens channels of communication between itself and the staff uh Board of Education and it also has in the word generally has a word generally in here again and it has staff members should be encouraged to utilize procedures established by board policy um I was elected and not restricted by who I can talk to when I can talk to them why I want to talk to them what I want to talk to them about Mr Shen are you saying that you're unwilling to follow board policy uh the board policy here does not inhibit me from doing those things that I just mentioned and where does it say where is it say in

029board policy I can't do that the same place it says that you're generally supposed to contact the superintendent Mr she where does it say that let me open it back up where does it say that I have to as an elected official who hires the super intendent has to go to the superintendent to ask for permission to talk to someone that I was elected to represent because those people do not report to you the only people it's not a matter of reporting I can talk to whoever I want whenever I want wherever I want that's what I was elected to do not to be restricted by talking to one person here so you are unwilling to follow board policy where does it where does it say that I'm opening it up tell me where it

030says that I'm open it up and read it so that everybody can hear it all right you do that you tell me where me as an elected board official is restricted from talking to any teacher any parent uh any super any any custodian any counselor that I have I'll tell you that it's going outside of board policy the Board of Education desires to maintain open channels of communication between itself and the staff the basic line of communication will however be through the superintendent section a staff Communications to the board Communications from staff members to the board or its committees shall be submitted through the superintendent the superintendent shall forward such Communications received from staff members to the board this procedure is not intended to deny any staff member his or her con constitutional right of

031free speech or the right to appeal or otherwise address the board on important matters through established procedures section B board Communications to staff all official Communications policies and directives of the board of Staff of interest and concern to the staff will generally be communicated through the superintendent who shall also keep the staff members informed of the board's concerns and actions section c social interaction both staff and board members shall share an interest in the schools and education generally and it is to be expected when they interact at Social Affairs and other functions they will informally discuss matters as educational Trends issues and Innovations and general activities of the district however since board members are not authorized to act on behalf of the board unless an open public session or when specifically vested with such Authority

032board members and members of the staff should not discuss individual personalities personal griev Personnel grievances or other complaints instead such matters should be addressed in accordance with procedures established in board policy or in the collective bargaining agreement and I think one thing that you might not not realize is that board policy and staff policy there's there are collective bargaining agreements that that establish these things and it this is board policy this is not stowman row Falls Board policy this is generally all School Board policy and it seems that you have an unwillingness to follow board policy and I'm not quite sure why no this doesn't say where a board member can't talk to whoever they want to this has no legal reference is there any legal reference on this policy at all any any legal

033refer are you stating that you don't want to follow doesn't the board doesn't have the authority to limit my free speech and this said the power this has no binding power okay so policies don't have binding power to you this this particular one does not tell me as a board member that I can that that I'm limited in who I can talk to and when I can talk to them that that's my point and when you've been asked multiple times to to speak directly through the superintendent and you choose not to that doesn't go with generally speaking through the superintendent or Treasurer it speaks to a lack of concern or a lack of of following directive who told me that who gave me that directive I've seen it okay when was that it doesn't matter

034I've seen it multiple times as board members we follow board policy right and this doesn't say board members is lied talk this yeah this policy is irrelevant to me it doesn't tell me who when and who I can talk to and where I can talk to them you've been provided guidance on this policy and board staff Communications multiple s includ including from legal and including during our trainings this is board policy are you saying that you are unwilling to follow board policy or do you have a suggestion to modify board policy right I said this this policy is worthless and has no binding power so I'd say 0148 should be should be removed what do you think is unique about our district that shouldn't hold this policy that's com I can't speak for other districts

035just asking what your op I can't speak for other districts so you think that that that we should be um operating completely different relevant question I can't speak for other I suggest we move on yeah we didn't have any suggested revisions to that paragraph nope okay next paragraph We will seek to deliberate and render all decisions in an honest fair and Equitable manner we will declare a conflict of interest when and if it should ever arise and a board member is expected to recuse oneself from any related discussion and action on that issue we will refrain from using our position on the board of education for personal or partisan gain we will actively engage in deliberations with the goal of coming to the best possible decision together should the decision should the discussion become unproductive

036the board will end the discussion on the topic and immediately proceed to a vote on the matter at hand we will strive to conduct meetings and Foster an environment where all may respectfully Express their ideas and perspectives and where all will actively listen for understanding we agree to avoid words and actions that create a negative impression of any individual Community or staff member Board of Education member guest or of the district itself we will render all decisions based solely on our assessment of currently available facts and data with input from our community the board is committed to decision making on Independent judgment and in the best interests of the district rather than capitulating to the influence of individuals or special interest groups any input on this paragraph okay seeing none let's move on to the

037next one we agree that attending to the business at hand during a board meeting is essential while we recognize the helpfulness of technology for accessing pertinent information and providing reasonable accommodation to members note taking preferences we agree not to use such technology for purposes which may distract from the business at hand we agree to set aside or place on do not disturb all phones SmartWatches and other personal communication deves for dur of our meetings unless Reed forf purpose eging a meeting so this just formalizes that we've talked about sending aside phones and other devices any questions concerns edits okay next paragraph We agree that executive sessions will be held only for legally allowed and appropriate issues and that their contents will remain confidential executive sessions are important and necessary and will be held when specific

038needs arise discussions will be limited to the expressed reasons for the executive session with the understanding that voting and or note taking will not take place in executive session board members agree that comments and discussion made in executive session are completely confidential and will not be shared I think that's pretty standard any questions concerns okay next we believe in the collective decision-making process we commit to working with one another to reach decisions in good faith regardless of differences of opinion we will not react to impromptu complaints as they are presented but will be thoughtful responders assuring that those who present questions or issues complete answers and efficient followup the senior leadership team will support decisions made by the board Andor the administrative team once they are made when adjustments to such decisions need to be

039made we commit to working together as a senior leadership team to improve the district even when we as indiv board members end up on the minority side of a vote we will support all decisions of the board within the community once a decision has been reached regardless of personal opinion or position any just think for grammar we just need to ask the get in line 74 at the end after issues m what was that I don't think I completely heard that line 7 74 um after issues at get so the get complete answers and efficient yeah thank you I had the get there that's why that sentence see felt awkward any others okay next paragraph We Will exemplify the governance role no individual board member nor the board is a whole will engage in micromanaging

040the district instead the board will collectively oversee and appropriately evaluate the performance of the superintendent and Treasurer the senior leadership team will support the policies approved by the board and in place in our district we will continue to study and review current or recommended policies for Effectiveness and appropriately engage Key School leaders in the development change or deletion of policies as warranted we will maintain and apply District policies consistently while being cognizant of and recognizing the potential uniqueness of any given situation any questions concerns edits for this one okay we will respect and utilize CEO input the superintendent is the chief executive officer of the senior leadership team and should make recommendations proposals or suggestions on most matters that come before the board we will respect their professional experience and opinion and will be willing

041to work with them on appropriate Solutions when we disagree okay not seeing anything on that one we understand that our Board of Education acts as one body individual board members do not have authority only the board as a whole has Authority we agree that individual board members will not take unilateral action and will not take responsibility for board decisions the board president will communicate the positions of the board on controversial issues any input okay not seeing any good in the main we will avoid Marathon board meetings to be efficient and effective long board meetings should be the exception rather than the rule points are to be made in as few words as possible speeches at board meetings should be minimal presenters and guests will be informed about appropriate time parameters if a board member has

042extensive questions or needs more information or clarification the superintendent or President should be contacted before the meeting we believe board meeting discussion is important and warranted and that every board member deserves to be heard again should discussion become repetitive inappropriate or unproductive the board will end the discussion on the topic immediately proceed to a vote on the matter at hand I do have a point on that one every item every topic of discussion doesn't necessarily end with a vote so if we could edit that to say um proceed to a vote or to the next agenda item I like that idea um that sentence Echoes one earlier in the protocol as well [Music] which I cannot find at the moment but I would suggest that we make that edit to the other time that it

043is mentioned that we will move on H there we go that would be a line 5152 we could make that edit as well any other suggestions okay we will respect the time and many other responsibilities of our leadership team the board will respect the fact that senior leadership has many responsibilities to manage as such we will while we will endeavor to speak with leadership regularly we will not repeatedly interrupt their days or expect immediate answers to routine non-emergency concerns for example when board members require further information prior to a meeting we will give leadership as much advanced warning and time to prepare as is possible we will make appointments and arrange times to talk which work for all parties barring emergency situations we will exerise patients when our queries of leadership require extensive research Gathering

044of materials or discussions with others in order to be accurately answered any questions on or suggestions on this one I don't but I do actually I see back on 102 yes um where it says the board will end the discussion we change that to president the board president sure since the board president presides over the meeting yeah that's a good idea everybody else in agreement with that okay sorry no that's fine that's the goal here is to uh do the edits we need to do okay anything else with the current paragraph okay next we will endeavor not to purposely Blindside or surprise other board members the superintendent or the treasurer while there should be discussion appropriate questioning and deliberation there should be no surprises at a board meeting surprises when they happen will be the

045exception not the rule this will allow all parties to prepare appropriately for the business of a meeting we agree to follow board policy and agreed upon board procedures regarding placing items of interest on the agenda instead of bringing them up unexpectedly at meetings any comments suggestions concerns with that one okay we commit to fiscal responsibility and transparency we are dedicated to being good stewards of taxpayer dollars ensuring open discussions about the district's finances and making thoughtful informed decisions our goal is to maintain the district's Financial Health promote long-term stability and allocate resources effectively to support the educational needs of our students are we good okay so we have a couple of minor edits um for folks wondering um other policies that uh are included in the protocol um the one most referenced is our board

046ethics policy which is policy 0123 uh if you're curious to look that up um we talked about the board staff Communications policy as well um we also have policy 0166 on Executive sessions [Music] um policy 01691 on public participation policy 0148 public expressions of board members um I feel like there is another one here my list those are the primary ones um as I said policy 0123 on board ethics is um a lot of what is fleshed out in this protocol and the goal is to make our meetings more efficient productive and not a marathon um does anyone else have anything that isn't addressed in here that we might want to address in in our protocol and add M do you have anything I don't okay Miss e sh no M mer Mr Sheen uh

047you'll probably get to the point but I see this as very restrictive limiting and unnecessary uh there's no legal references there's no binding Authority so this uh and this is how a representative Republic Works um and I think this whole protocol statement is worthless have you done any research to see how many other similar districts have board protocol statements and what theirs look like I don't care what other districts do well I have and this is very common and again it was suggested by our expert from osba who did training with us um and it is a very common thing for board members to talk through and agree on kind of what our rules of the road are together um our board trainer suggested that even if we do uh put a protocol statement in

048place that that gets reviewed at least yearly so that we make sure that everybody is on board and on the same track together do you recall getting the advice that we should adopt a protocol statement yes and I do recall the fact that the osba said that we should uh adopt agendas at the beginning of a meeting as well so okay so again the obba is just giving us suggestions they're not uh it's not the rule of law there's nothing binding to those and this is my opinion as an elected board uh as an elected board official it's fantastic thank you so our next step sorry but these are protocols that were passed by the board so these are the rules that we've all agreed to work by this is a business meeting this is

049not a place for everyone to have their Personal Agenda we have work to do and we need to follow the procedures to get that work done we have a regular calendar where we have certain things that we have to do we have to go over the budget we have policies re review every year we have certain things that U need to be done by this board and this is not a forum for people's personal opinions and agendas that we work as a body for the students and the teachers and the people of this community if people have personal opinions they can form their own group and do that somewhere else actually do have one more thing to add I think that um it got brought up that perhaps there was a lack of oversight on

050the board and I would suggest that it's possible that um due to a constant level of chaos coming at other board members the superintendent at the treasurer intentionally um mind you um that it definitely restricts the board's ability to do what they're supposed to be doing which is putting students first and I think that's why it's important to make sure that we're all maintaining um proper decorum and following a protocol that uh keeps students first thank you all um the suggested edits will be made I will run our final copy past legal uh just to make sure that it is all in compliance with our existing policies which I believe it is uh but it never hurts to put another set of eyes on that and then we will um vote to uh we will

051vote on this protoc whether to ad it or not at a future meeting we've heard from okay could we correct East Junkin name on the oh no did I I'm sorry yeah that would be because my fingers type letters in random orders and I apologize for not doing that correctly yes we will edit that thank you for the catch okay next item of discussion is the agenda setting process when we had put this into place last year uh we kind of did it on a temporary basis I printed it out just in case anybody needed a copy um and kind of promised ourselves that we would check back in and um see whether it is working and whether we might want to change this process um the this follows board policy well board policy 01651

052regular meetings um defines how agendas are set I also printed that out for everyone I apologize to the forest but I like to have things in front of me um our policy states it shall be the responsibility of the superintendent in cooperation with the board president to prepare an agenda of the items of business to come before the board at each regular meeting the agenda of the regular monthly meeting or special meeting shall be accompanied by a report from the superintendent on information relating to the district with such recommendations as she he shall make each agenda shall contain the following statement this meeting is a meeting of the Board of Education in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting there is a

053time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in comments from the audience see the agenda for each regular meeting shall be mailed or delivered to each board member we might want to update that so as provide proper time for the member to study the agenda generally the agenda should be mailed or emailed no later than two days prior to the meeting or delivered so as to provide time for the study of the agenda by the member the agenda for a special meeting shall be delivered at least 24 hours before the meeting consistent with Provisions calling for special meetings D the board shall transact business according to the agenda prepared by the superintendent and submitted to all board members in advance of the meeting the order of business may be altered and items might may

054be added at any regular meeting by a majority vote of the members present um and then it goes on to define consent agenda but that is the agenda setting piece of the policy um so we had agreed after some questions last year about the timing of putting that agenda together we had agreed on the board meeting um agenda setting process that I just handed down uh and I sort of wanted to uh get some input from everyone on how they feel that process is working I know I very much appreciate our pre- agenda meetings um that we have set up with the treasurer the superintendent the board president and the board vice president uh I think uh putting all for people together when everyone is available uh allows us to make sure that we're not

055letting things fall through those cracks having them the the Thursday before the meeting seems to be working pretty well in my opinion um others experiences here I just want to take a minute and review it again just to make sure that we're uh my comment on this is uh that this has been a very frustrating process because I continuously feel that I'm being judged scrutinized and questioned and frankly many of these questions is a through D here is what should be discussed at a meeting and not all of this discussion going on prior to a meeting that's the point of the meeting um you know and again I'm referenced to go have these private meetings with admins I I I'm not required to do that it it uh I I like to discuss things in

056public um so my questions and concerns as I had read earlier are are just um returned with me with countless other requirements and and uh restrictions U that should be addressed at the meeting I'm an equal member I'm a 20% member of the board and I and I I feel I'm being judged and and and um by some imaginary veto power that uh this this the group has on the on Thursdays when they're putting this together I've followed these guidelines I've sent my requests in the in the time that they're asked but then I'm that's where it stops that's where it ends and um these things need to be transparent they need to be in public they need to be discussed accordingly um these are things that people in the community are coming to me

057with that have concerns and questions and like I had said I have no other recourse but to figure out other ways of getting that information out because I'm continuously stopped and censored um as far as when I'm sharing or wanting to put something on the agenda to be discussed do you recall what the board agenda the board policiy is for setting agendas if you want to go back to it it says here the responsibility it is shall be the responsibility of the super intended in cooperation with the board president to prepare an agenda of items of business to come before the board at each regular meeting that is not something that you are being held to uniquely it is something all five board members are held to and that this has nothing to do with

058you personally the word there says prepare so to me preparing is based on information that was brought to them by other board members it's it's not to restrict it's not to judge it's not to um make uh to to pick and choose it was strictly to prepare based on the input from the other board members I've seen a lot of communication um that you've sent asking for things and sometimes you put things that's not even an agend it's not even a a an action item it's just commentary that you wish to have sure why not who who who this is a meeting Mr Sheen why not because this is a governance body and our job is to be in that governance role not to not to make speeches um not to use a meeting to

059learn more about how the district operates when I want to know more about how the district operates I talk to our experts and I learn more about how the district operates and if that leads to an agenda item such as a suggestion for a change in policy then at that point I bring It Forward wait a minute you just you just said something the district experts you're just telling me here I'm not supposed to do that I'm supposed to go through the superintendent which was part of my part of my point anyways as far as if I want to find that out I'm free to go talk to those people but but these are things that people are that people in the community are coming to me with so there's a concern so where else

060are they going to get answers to this but at a board meeting sir please do not misconstrue the board staff Communications policy it says not that you cannot speak to other people in the district it says that the superintendent is our Point person to put us in contact with those other experts in the district as per their judgment and knowledge of who is the best person to give us more information on a particular topic I I really think that it would do well to take a training class because I think some of these things would uh become a little bit more clear to you that it's not intended to restrict RCT you it is intended to make sure that all five board members are following the same proper protocol I'll give you an example when

061I had questions about the Fieldhouse I did not go directly to operations and ask questions I went to the superintendent and had a discussion via email and asked where I should go or what I should do that information was then forwarded to operations and then that we were connected and able to have a conversation on our own that's what you chose to do I and there's nothing here that tells me I have to do that that was your that was your decision you made that decision to do that that is board policy again we are looking to follow our board policy in our actions nothing says that I have to there's nothing says that I as an elected official have to do that so our goal here is to operate in our governance role and

062to have meetings where we can have efficient discussions and deliberate with preparation and knowledge none of that says that all of those discussions are private it says we bring those discussions to the full board into a meeting when it is appropriate not every single question we have um who decides when it's appropriate and why wouldn't it be every single question that we have because we that seems that we're now getting away from the transparency issue and and and the issue of you know maybe I can't go maybe I don't choose to go to the superintendent because we have teachers that are intimidated by the fact that if they if we were to follow this that they would be reprimanded or harmed or that a parent has an issue so I'm free to talk about policy

063does not tell me that I can't do that are you making a claim that you've been contacted by teachers that are afraid of the superintendent is that no I'm not I'm just using it as a hypothetical oh hypothetically okay yes but that hasn't happened yet hypothetically no okay again I think it might behoove you to watch some other school districts board meetings and see exactly that this is not anything unique this is the way board meetings are supposed to be um held this is the process that went on uh for years before I sat on the board this is the me the way meetings were conducted when I sat out there in the audience and for some reason you are you are under the impression that there's some kind of unique rules that are being

064applied to you and that's just not accurate just because we want meetings to follow board policy doesn't mean that you're being punished for and you know the simple fact is I that following our own policy is the best practice it's not even policy that we set it's past boards have set this policy and again if we choose to change policy that is always an option for us to discuss um but while policy is effective we are expected to follow it just as we expect our staff to follow policy any other members any input or concerns on the agenda setting process I do think a through D is a lot is just a lot of information there I don't know I don't know if I necessarily agree that all of those things have to be followed

065I think no I think D is essential how is this a board issue right is this our governance role or not I think that's essential for items that we place on the agenda um the other information is I think I think I encapsulated it a little bit um in one of my questions to Mr Sheen earlier um about a a previous agenda I just asked do you have any references or attachments which would pertain to these items if they're included on an agenda which would assist the rest of the board and leadership team and being thoroughly prepared for the discussion I think that's important for us to get a little bit of the background of um in of the issue in order to prepare for those discussions those deliberations and have an efficient meeting um

066and from there I think that and D would kind of be my suggestion of what sort of information to include when requesting additions to an agenda yeah would that address can I ask is this a place where maybe do we need to put subcommittee reports as an addition to this or is that someplace else that I'm not seeing in terms of the setting the agenda right I don't know that we have formalized the committee report process that's been something that's been more practice than policy what would you suggest I just maybe a mention of that in the meetings that there would be reports from the subcommittees because it happens it's just not in the policy mhm see um you're talking policy change if you could get together what language you're suggesting and pass it along

067um that might be something that could get discussed in policy committee I would think okay for just for the sake of going over all of this I think maybe it's if we go through it line by line that's okay okay um the the board president will consider the following when determining if an agend an item should be added to the meeting agenda what is the current board policy um and then sub points would be has this issue already been addressed is there a policy or procedure in place for this are we in compliance with board policy or do we need to make a change and I think you know I a in of itself just what is board policy understanding if there is or isn't a policy before you bring it to the board for

068change or consideration is probably just basic preparation I mean I guess we can spell it out but you know coming to the board coming bringing an issue to the board without having done research to even find out if we have a policy on it would be premature that's just basic knowledge I would think um but I don't know what we think about leaving that in I would lean toward leaving in the larger question of what is current board policy and not necessarily the details of what that means so just something to think about make sure you're reviewing what is already happening before we're talking about yeah potential change okay and I think it might be the same thing for b b what is current District practice um so subo one what are we doing now

069subo two how is current practice not effective um again I think those sort of elaborate on the question I'm not sure whether those are needed what do we think I think it might be too many points that make it feel restrictive I can understand and and and support the idea of feeling restricted and I'm willing to work with figuring out how to make you feel less uh restricted Mr Sheen and I think perhaps taking out some of this language would help that okay the next is who in the district have you consulted who will be affected responsible has one of the superintendent committees refed that reviewed this should we have this staff person present to answer questions and provide more information so again I think this is a matter of basic preparation um if if

070I want to have a discussion about the Fieldhouse I think it's best if I've contacted the superintendent and have someone for be able to come speak to the Fieldhouse this is just basic board member preparation um so would you leave in the who in the district of you consulted part or would you take out this whole section I I mean I think I would take it out but is it just a matter of a point of just asking like have you talked about this with the superintendent or Treasurer yet a simple question before it goes on yeah okay I mean I can I can support that question I don't know about any else so is the purpose of this one to have the the people the meeting that might need to be at the meeting

071right so that the discussion can be productive so we have an expert on hand to answer board members questions on a particular topic so for example if we had questions about how changes in special education law were impacting our students right then we would want someone um who deals with special services here to talk to us about that or if we had questions about curriculum and curriculum adoption it helps to have a curriculum director here to kind of address those questions that would be the purpose of it but I'm not sure if that has to be in the agenda setting piece well no but I'm wondering if it depends on the timing so if this is we're doing this Monday through Wednesday Thursday of the week and then we want to have someone be here

072at the following Monday for a meeting we need to give them time when to be available because they don't have this on their calendar and then have the information that we need so we can get that to the staff member as quickly as possible I think is crucial right and it does specify that kind of that additions to the agenda should come in by Wednesday um and that that preparation is part of it preparation on part of the board but also preparation on part of our staff um so well I think one thing that we need to understand and this goes for all of us is that just because we've brought something if if there's an item that's not ready to be discussed yet because that person can't be here or because they're not prepared

073um to do a presentation yet or if they would like to gather more information um just to make sure that it's uh an easily dis easily deated information like it could end up on the next meeting not necessarily this coming meeting right there are times that um agenda items have been delayed by a meeting or two for example U Mr Sheen wanted to talk about the release time for religious instruction policy uh once the law changed um and that got delayed a meeting until we had the um suggestions in hand from Neola about what that policy would look like to make it compliant with the new law um so it did get discussed it just waited a meeting to get discussed so would it maybe be prent to potentially if a topic isn't going to

074make it for this meeting to kind of say this is going to go on the next agenda that way board members feel as though it's going to be talked about it's not just being swept swept away yeah um and you know that brings up a a point here um this this process doesn't specify that the board president will get back to um a particular member on those agenda items and maybe it should um it is a two-way process of communication uh and maybe part of the expectation should be and is um and I think have done some of this communication um to after the Thursday morning meeting once an a draft agenda is kind of completed uh by the leadership team to loop back to individual board members and let them know that you know

075the that agenda is there and here's what happened with your items in particular so then leaving in just have you contacted Super Treasure just as a simple just a simple question for the person to to make sure like if everyone you know is going through this when I'm asking for something have I done these things yet okay so what is current board policy have you contacted super or Treasurer yet and is this related to governance versus operations just three little bullet points instead of you know all of this this this feels like a lot to me just a lot lot to look at a lot of rules but it all boils down to essentially three things right does that sound reasonable to anybody everybody Mr Shen well again that a through D I think is

076unnecessary um and then in that sentence right before it said the board president will consider so it doesn't so again that aspect of the board president is just to uh put the put the agenda together um and I'm leaning on the fact that maybe I present something and I'm way off base and we talk about it at a board meeting and I find out I'm way off base but who's determined that beforehand it it shouldn't be determined beforehand especially if items that I'm presenting 90% of the time are things that citizens parents are asking me about and we want to inquire about where better to talk about it at a board meeting than at some little administrative meeting that's not public um and I'll use an example here I wanted on this this was a

077business meeting this was our Workshop the national Schoolboard Leadership Council membership I put that on there I wanted to discuss about that that's not on here I don't remember what the reason was but I gave a website can I can provide you with that reason right now okay my response to that email from you uh was that we agreed at last Monday's meeting to limit the topics for tonight to the topics that are on this agenda the board protocol the agenda setting process and uh discussion on our finances um you guys agreed I did not agree so we discussed it at our meeting last week and everyone was asked whether there were any other topics that they wished to add to tonight's agenda and at that time no one spoke up to add additional topics

078and at that time I wasn't I it didn't cross my mind so it was something that came later and based on this hey by Wednesday or Thurs whatever the date is uh I sent that over I said hey can we put this on on there to be discussed and again the the point of our meetings is to conduct our business to conduct our governance business I think this was a governance issue this is a this is a Schoolboard leadership uh Council I think that would fit into governance I was under the impression that that was just going on next month meet next meeting and not this that it was just we were asking for things even from the superintendent and Treasurer to just pause this week and not make long long agenda so that we

079could get through all of our work Workshop items and not that it was not coming going to happen that was that's what I was under the impression is that what and I I may not have looped that back clearly to Mr Shen um which is I I guess the other thing what's the issue about expediency on these meetings and not that I like long meetings but if there's a lot of things that we have to talk about we may have a long meeting I mean the byw you talk about rules it says we really only need to meet once every couple of months so we may occasionally have a long meeting the goal is to do our work efficiently I think too it's it's out of respect for the community members that want to sit

080here and watch what's happening and if our meeting is four hours long it it a lot of people have a hard time um with with long meetings like that um I just want to go back to this so then I know you said a through G it's too much so you you don't agree with a board member finding out if it's current board policy before they bring it up at the board no if a board member wants something on the agenda the board member should have that item on the agenda okay so nood work in advance to find a policy do you want to have do you agree about finding out what the practice is in advance if a board member wants something on the agenda they should have it on the agenda okay so

081no research on practice do you um agree to communicate with the superintendent and Treasurer to try to find out what um to have people prepared here to answer to your questions that's up to that board member who's wanting this particular item on the agenda okay so we're adults commun that's how we want to do it do you agree to making sure that it's a board related governance issue uh again that's that that could be determined at the uh at the uh at the meeting okay so no all right thank you I was trying to be um cooperative and find a common ground but if you're not willing to do any preparation I don't think that we're going to find a common ground so I suggest I am doing preparation I I'm presenting the item that

082I want on the agenda so I am doing preparation asking a question is not the same as engaging in preparation well without having him in front of me I don't know how many of them were questions but if they were in a question form then I stand corrected but many of them are not case point I would like to discuss my membership in National School Board Leadership Council that's not a question that's a statement and I was denied that and it's going on next month's meeting because interest nobody told me and why why this is this is a workshop right I answered we're picking and choosing we're picking and choosing based on I answered your email and made it clear that since we had discussed the topics for tonight's meeting one week ago at our

083previous meeting that but I felt it was best for us to stick to those topics which we had discussed together and you have no veto power okay I okay so I think it is time for us to move on to our financial discussion and presentation Mr Gano I'm sure this is going to take a minute to pull up thank you all right so today we're going to be well tonight going to be talking about a financial overview with myself treasur CFO and Dr gold she might have some inputs as we move on further in the presentation so we kind of narrowed it down for this one by four topics those four topics are Financial Trends um the latest I could go back from the state is FIS fiscal year 2010 um and all the way

084to our actual numbers through fiscal year 24 our Levy cycle and some of the fair school funding and the challenges that face uh our district as as well as other school districts in Ohio the current the spending freeze and what have we done and what's next after each of these topics there'll be a place for questions after each topic so if you could please jot down the questions in between um I would appreciate that thank [Music] you okay so the first topic we're going to uh Financial Trends just a little introduction we're going to review any key financial Trends from fy10 to fy2 24 focus on any revenue of the expenditures and the access Revenue Trends it's quite interesting to see on the graph that I'll be presenting later on and understanding the long long-term

085effects of Financial Health and the decisions ever made since fy10 how theyve how they led us to what our current situation is in some of the key terms I'll be talking about FY is fiscal year so the fiscal year is from July 1st to June 30th so we are in fiscal year 25 GF is general fund Pi is permanent Improvement fund Mills is millage which is a unit of measure and then ffp Fair school funding plan and there might be some in there that I kind of forgot but those are the big ones all right so before we get into this uh first graph you'll see there's three different colors I don't know if you can really tell by that but there's yellow bars which is going to be the total revenue in other Financial

086sources which is 2.08 maroon bars the total expenditures and other Financial uses and a blue line which is the excess revenue or financial sources so as Dr gold pulls that up thank you and it looks worse up there that's so I do apologize but this will be on board docs for anyone to see so on the left hand side I'll kind of describe it those are the dollar amounts um on the left you'll see the gold and the charts and that is the total revenue and on to the right is the total expenditures and then the Blue Line shows us where our cash ending is those fiscal year not cash ending yeah cash ending for the fiscal years so if you take a look at fiscal 10 you see we were pretty positive in fiscal

08711 we kind of dipped down to $220 which we were deficit spending so a nice indication on this anytime you see that the red is higher than the gold that means we're deficit spending our expenses are higher than our revenues so we saw a nice trend for the next two years fy12 and fy13 of a positive and then something happened in fy14 where we started we started to see a decline and that decline stem goes through all the way F schal 17 we had some significant um deficit spending in those years we still have some cash flow your deficit spending and as you see in fiscal 16 we were $41,000 so that's where we started to see a huge decrease FAL 17 we were ne4 million we had I believe a levy passed in fy7

088which brought some dollars so it made the deficit not as bad in 200 with coming in at $28,000 and then from there on we saw a huge deficit spending from fy19 all the way through FY 23 ranging from 2 million to $4 million and then in FY 24 we saw a nice surplus of 35 $3.5 million it's just a rough breakdown of that graph I think it's nice to see how our revenues compared to our expend our expenditures and the deficits ending or the surplus of that fiscal year so one of the key things that we have to keep in mind is long-term Financial Health is crucial as you could see in the previous chart the decisions we make in the past affect the future so the sooner we're able to rectify a solution the

089better it will be and it won be compounding in the future fiscal years to come we always want want to take a look at our expenditures compared to our revenues as you can see that in the last several fiscal years they've exceeded the nice thing about FY 24 was we not the nice thing for us unfortunately it was at the burden of the taxpayers we saw an increase in real estate valuations which helped the district bring in more dollars and then there's always risk factors when it comes to looking at budgets and how we can make the student outcome the best possible ways it's economic I inflation Rising costs I've said it before we as a school district always see those rising cost as well so we also get hit with those burdens and it's

090always at our due diligence to find the cheapest and best solution to make the student outcome the best and at this point I will take any questions on what we yep have um so uh and we could go back we had deficit spending from 2014 up until this year is that what you're saying yes so how did you and the superintendent pull us out of deficit spending because it looks like this is the first year in many many years that we haven't been in deficit spending yes so there's a couple things we the valuations really helped us um but when I came in January 23 a lot of that was already um written as I was still getting my feet wet understanding the districts how the district operated and what they spent their dollars on

091I cannot say how the Administration has done in the past but since I've been here we have looked at budgets and cutting where we can and setting the precedent that we should be buying what we need not what we want given our past Financial situations in 24 with that increased Revenue we still saw that number higher um but we still always try to make sure that we do the best that we can in fy2 which we're still projecting and uh we still are looking at ways we could cut um like I'll be talking about the spending frees later on but we look at Staffing we look at budgets and we try to have our uh buildings use ptas and fundraisers or principal accounts as um much as they can to take the burden off the

092general fund any other thing you want to look at also is the federal dollars that are coming in you want to see how you can leverage those more as opposed to uh impacting the general fund so we've really taken a very close look at what actually could be um taken from the general fund and actually put into those federal dollars uh as well and so there's nothing that's not on the table so every department is being looked at for fiscal responsibility and what has been spent we'll be looking at Trends to see um what the spending has looked like in those departments and then start to prioritize uh what we can do immediately and some things that we will have to put on hold I just wanted to bring up a point of uh as

093to there was an earlier comment about um fiscal oversight and it seems that it looks like uh in an actuality that in fy19 through fy2 our extreme deficit spending is what got us into uh the negative that situation that we're in now um and the current Administration is doing everything they can to pull us out and is successful at that so far would that be a correct statement yeah we are doing everything we possibly can and I'm sure there's more we could be doing um you know but there's only so much time in a day with our regular jobs and anything else we get to asked uh to do but yes I would say that's an accurate statement thank you any other questions okay and I know I've touched on some of levies and some

094of my prior um Financial sessions and I believe we talked about some of when we were talking about a bond issue um so I kind of broke the next three slides into three different slides we have our general fund slides um the numbers on the left that are in the Bold that's kind of for audit per not audit for the County purposes that's how they track our levies so one of our general fund levies is 4.74 Mills which brings in $6.88 N million our next one is uh general fund and I'm not sure when that was passed uh it wasn't on our um certification of tax levy uh so I don't know if that's just where the starting point of school funding came from then our next general fund was passed in 1976 which is

095.54 Mills bringing $17.5 million this is a continuous Levy that does not need any renewal the next one is was passed in 1977 again continuous renewal or continuous funding without renewal which brings in $4.8 million so where I got this information was what I presented on not the exact one but what I presented on last meeting um that the county gives us um once again this will all be up there so I apologize for the lack of seeing clearly um so you see the numbers on the left and we get our funding um twice a year so that's why it's kind of broken down between January June and July through December you see the Mills per each Levy and then the total amount that we receive so you can always go to the AUD website

096or our board docs to see this document and that's where I pull a lot of this information from okay and then we moved on to General uh general fund emergency fun levies we have four of them and you'll see on these ones uh the year how long that these levies are for so the first one is for 3.32 Ms for 5 years that brings in 4.7 this one was passed in fall of 2022 and it's the last collected at the end of 2026 so we'll be talking with the board and some of our uh specialist Bond Council Municipal adviser in our K12 uh consultant on when when's the best time put this on the ballot and what are some of our options moving forward uh we have up until November of 2026 to get this

097pass our next emergency Levy is for 5.7 Ms which is for 10 years years we first collected in 2024 and we last collected in December of 23 same thing renewal schedule on the ballot for sometime in no later than November of 2020 2033 my apologies uh and the same for the next two that these are termed for 10 years and they'll be on the ballot um around the time on up on there so the one thing that Dr gold and I did on Friday we met with some of our Bond Council our Municipal advisers and our K2 Consultants just to kind of get the ball rolling and have bigger discussions what we can present to the board and the community of what's the best for stom R fall City's school district and so some of

098that information is to follow once we get back some reports and we have more data to present to the board and then we have our permanent Improvement funds so these are just on permanent Improvement capital capital expenditures and any assets that last five years or more we have two of them they are both continuous funding without renewal and not sure when the first one was passed but the second one was passed in 2017 and it's nice to have a permanent Improvement fund because this does help take the burden off the general fund when we're looking at buses maintenance Vehicles large expenditures Roofing chillers boilers you name those big Capital expenditures and it's nice to have a permanent Improvement fund to help cover those expenses and on this slide I just kind of totaled all of

099them in the three categories I just went over so our total general fund uh levies bring comes to 29 million our emergency fund comes to 27 million and our PI funds come to 2.8 million bringing us a total of $59 million for local funding it's a lot of money and then on this chart once again I apologize for the the visuals but you could kind of see that the ABS and flows of when we receive are local dollars roughly every six months you see a spike and then trickles down and another Spike and it trickles down and then towards the right side of that uh you'll see um sometimes it doesn't always come in at the same time and there's some adjustments that have are needed from the county to give us our dollarss so

100so it's not always going to be hey you always receive x amount of dollars every January or X am of dollars every June it always ups and flows which is not the best but we're at the mercy of our County Auditors but this goes back all the way from April of 2022 it was the easiest way to collect the data that we have in our current Financial software but I'm sure if I were able to find the um similar data in the e finance in the old system um without having to do a lot of digging it would be very similar to the trends that we see right here okay so next we're going to segue into the fair school funding just because I thought it was very relevant so up on the screen um

101you see there's a d vers Ohio and the fair school funding so if you want to read through that I'm going to talk a little bit about um the two so the draw first the state of Ohio was in 1977 rolled that Ohio schools funding system was unconstitutional due to its heavy Reliance on property taxes which you just realized which you just seen we bring about $59 million of local taxes which created unfair discrepancies between wealthier and poor districts however despite multiple Rollings the state never fully restructured the funding formula only making partial improvements increasing state aid and funding school facilities the FSF the ffp fair school funding Plan introduced in 2021 so it's fairly new takes more of a proactive approach by calculating the actual cost of educating a student in adjusting state and

102local contributions accordingly unlike D which Expos the problem without enforcing a solution Fair school funding plan aims to fix that throughout policy changes with its promising implementation is still going on its success depends on continued State funding thanks so in conclusion deral exposed the problem the first school funding plan attempted to fix a problem still implementing funding inequality still exist the State has yet to find the best way to fund public schools which is pretty disheartening as you will see in my next graft you know they call it a fair school funding but that fair is very uh loose I would say um you'll see in some of my fair School uh charts that it the burden is heavily on our taxpayers which is unfair to fund for the schools it was uh this brought

103me back to my school finance and actually School law because we learned a lot about derol in the school law which is always fun remember the discussions we've had in my classes so just kind of some more things on the first school funding that I kind of just readdressed already addressed um so IT addresses it tries to address inequalities in Ohio school funding um it reduce it should reduce the Reliance on Lo local property taxes but unfortunately we don't see that here in stone Ro Fall City School District uses a state centered funding formula based on actual educational cost right now those those numbers are from like 21 and think a lot everything was cheaper in 2021 um unlike today so they're not keeping up with the costs and the data that we have currently

104you know every every year you see a rise in um salary benefits uh health care and that's not accounted for it and we considered both property values of residents income levels to determine District wealth so with the state we're considered wealthy um so when you look at other districts who are even wealthier it's he well Loosely wealthier um you know it it the burdens always falls back on to the taxpayers which isn't right and so hopefully that someone could find the right way to uh help the uh politicians to fund Public Schools the best way so the impact and goals so we want to they want to Ure that funding is in line with the real cost of Education um which is hard to do when you're pulling numbers from 2021 that was four years

105ago like I said a lot of things have changed in the past four years so it's how do you figure out what it cost a student today with four years ago numbers uh fully implementation requires continued legislative support funding it is a good thing that they're still talking about the fair school funding plan because it is a much more improved than derol it's just not 100% there uh I don't know if it's ever going to be there I could only hope um but it is nice that they're still continuing to talk about it uh with the bipartisan the plan so evolving but it needs long-term commitment for Success they kind of talk about this every sing every two years so there's a way that they could find out a solution that will last more than

106two years you know I think they have they could spend their time on better more uh on better topics than this if they were able to figure it out so just because it's kind of relevant with the governor's budget so from what's proposed so from fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 27 the district would see a decrease of $976,000 which really shifts that burden to the uh local Revenue sources so that's a six and a half decrease of our foundation we would see in the next two years which is pretty pretty rough um roughly payroll is about 1.5 Plus benefits about 2.5 and for paying supplementals anywhere from $3 million um a month a pay uh we pay our medical once a month so that that checks never less than a million dollars and that's

107always going to increase so you could see anywhere from a month payroll to be to6 million on the high end so you can see that's just like a drop of the in the bucket but that would affect our funding and if that would be the case we would have to look at where we could cut at least 9 $976,000 just to put things into perspective BL you and that's that's at the what was last presented Patrick a question on that 976 320 is that per year is that would that be can you go back to that last slide yeah that was um okay so decrease that's minus 6 point uh 5% 25 26 27 or it'll be 20 yeah two years so that so that's 20627 and I could share with you the the Excel

108that the whole state was given got but it's it's that not FY to f27 correct not uh 976 time three correct we would see a total decrease of 6 and a half% throughout the next couple years sorry if I made that unclear that three years then are just two years it's for the two-year budget cycle okay yeah and some of the wealthier districts were getting money which um didn't make any sense so we were losing money other districts were receiving a lot of money but I'll share that spreadsheet or that spreadsheet with you just so you can kind of have background knowledge and I'll add it to board dos for anybody else who would like to look at it Dr gold you might know the answer to this and um just because I know you

109have a lot of involvement with uh these type of things but is there anything a district can do to advocate for a better percentage or better better funding for our district in particular so right now legislation is uh in the works of talking about um the budget um they will have a testimony that can be had at the state as well as we can write our legislators because a lot of times they say that they don't hear uh from the Educators uh when it comes to these type of things and so definitely uh writing our legislators letting them know exactly how it's impacting our district telling our story uh is a good way and we've been in uh some of the PDS that I've attended through the treasurers or the superintendent networks is that um

110Dr G and I are going to talk and have seeing if they'll come in and sit with us because uh some legislators will come in sit with you to like so they see how this is going to affect your school district like Dr ghoul said we had start telling our story and how this is going to affect our community our schools and our students um so if you are free you know re feel free to reach out to your legislators and tell them um how you feel whether it's good or bad um but you know I think it shows if we could get our residents or lumini to start reaching out to our legislators to say like hey this is what we want you to know if anybody wants to have contact information for their

111uh house or their legislator you can email the Board website and you can get that for you bfcsd.org will get you us so somebody can help you find your legislator yeah I'm sure you'll see more coming out um I plan to start having a bonly or a uh not B monthly every swapt in the little trip Financial Corner uh to give out some information uh you'll start you start I've started seeing a lot of treasures taking more of a um approach to like let the residents know what to do like here's your legislators you know reach out to them if you'd like this a lot of this will stay updated on uh so the community knows as well because it is confusing uh you know whether they're in session out of session and uh oasbo

112does a good job at keeping the schools updated and the information they need to push out to the residents and the board to keep them well informed and I have a a key point a fact sheet when it comes to uh funding U that we can also share um as well and the other thing is don't ever think that students cannot go down and speak and give testimony in front of legislators as well that's always a good thing to have happen do we have a way of communicating with people outside of parent square that could communicate with larger community and not just our school I know you're looking at me like I wish it's one of the largest challenges we face so if anybody has suggestions we're all ears yeah because I know there's a

113lot of people that that are definitely interested in this kind of information that would not that may not go to the website may not get parents Square yes we've been talking a lot about that how do we reach uh outside of our um constituents that have um a viable interest in the district who just they live in the community how do we get that to them without a local newspaper right exactly so we have really been uh trying to come up with a way to make sure that like I always say we have to tell our story before someone else tells it can we use the city both cities web pages we I'll have to talk to the Mayors um I have a quarterly meeting with them so that I'll put that on my agenda

114the other thing I think a couple years ago the water bill I know it was mailed at that time it's probably digital maybe on that page when they go to that page something I've even thought about a one page flyer that they can put in your bag at the grocery store [Music] so PSA if anybody has any suggestions allers on how we could reach out to the community who doesn't have any uh children or family in the school districts thank you okay so next we're going to move on to the spending freeze the spending freeze remains in effect and further reinforce fiscal responsibilities additional restraints will be implemented as we move forward towards the annual closure of POS the board will be well aware before this is sent out to the staff the measures are

115necessary to ensure the district remains a stable Financial path and can continue to meet our commitments to the students staff and Community this one was kind of short and sweet because I we've talked about it a couple times at the last prior board meetings um you know we I think I said it before I want to apologize for the late of uh notice to the board and to the staff because those projections were relevant earlier on the month um it was kind of like if we don't do it now it's going to be too late uh so I can only move forward and do the best I can uh down the road uh but Dr gold and I have talked and we're going to start making those decisions earlier than later and letting the board

116know ahead of time so you're not blindsided like you were at this past time so I do apologize for that but I'll take any other questions you have on the spending freeze thank you I appreciate that I think for me the the um one of the important pieces of that that you and I had talked about uh was that making was making sure that those spending decisions are kind of centralized that we're keeping to our budgets um that we have the right eyes on each piece of spending um while we make sure that our students get what they need um we might be tightening our belt in terms of wants right but that the students are able to get what they need while we still have enough money in the bank waiting for the next

117tax payment to cover the things that that we need to cover um so that to me made a lot of sense um and I appreciate finding us finding some ways to sort of um kind of equalize those decisions centralize those decisions so that they can be planful I have a question about budgets do is it like that does The English Department have a budget does the science department have a budget does it how is that broken down yeah so the budgets are broken down by Department and then by building so when I mean when I refer to departments it'll be like treasur superintendent Special Services food service transportation business operations maintenance and then from there goes down to the district buildings and then it's up to the principal to allocate the funds that are assigned

118to them of how they see fit so you mentioned quite a few but um you didn't mention Athletics does it does Athletics have a budget I apologize so they do have a budget yes yeah and I may have forgot a couple of those but yes so what we did this past year with Mrs Pro is we realized our six elementary schools um it was kind of all over the place they were given this building was given this much money and this building was only given a smaller amount and so what we did was we aimed it on a cost per student so we each gave a on average how much the student um amount per student so you got that amount times how many kids you received to make it more Equitable and that was

119a good decision moving forward I think we saw some buildings that were higher got to lower so we kind of made it Equitable across all elementary schools and then we took the cost per student up to the um Intermediate Middle School and High School as well some buildings kind of stayed the same and when we did that we then started to look at where we could cut and where we could save money one of the things with having six elementary schools with or multiple elementary schools or multiple schools is passing uh Equity of Maintenance with the state making sure that your schools aren't spending more than the other ones um that that's also looked at on salary benefits supplies purchase services so there's a lot of things that we have to do that we do

120have to make sure we pass and luckily we do pass the maintenance of equity anytime that you're in question they reach out to you you fill out a survey you give them supportting documentation and then they review it and then they give a deciding factor so building budgets are per student so that we're making sure that's Equitable across the the different buildings what about for other more specialized budgets um I don't know if special services is its own budget Athletics Fine Arts um is there a formula for those so uh special service does have a budget it's always a big budget because uh it's just a very expensive Department to run uh not because Mrs Pro makes it expensive it's all the requirements that are set by the state that we have to follow um

121and when it comes down to the Arts that comes down to the building uh principle or the building leader at that building of where they see those dollars being spent um I think there's another question in there but I kind of forget Athletics okay suppl yeah and uh our supplementals that we pay we I think right now we're just I think for this fiscal year we're going to pay about 9 $45,000 in supplementals ranging from athletic positions to ban to uh um instructional coaches all the way down the lists and those rates for supplementals are part of our collective bargaining agreements correct that's correct okay and and there is kmt and high school separate as far as in the athletic world is their budget separate yes and do we ever look at those aside from

122what the collective bargaining agreement has as far as just looking at how many and are these necessary is it you know do we need to cut back back you know when is that is that something annually that's looked at or take it yes is annual is part of the is part of the collective bargaining agreement that you're to look at those annually so just and enough to get into detail how would the supplementals be how are they part of the collective bargaining agreement because those aren't for the most part I don't know what the percentage is but a lot of them aren't even teachers so how is what's the relationship so it is bargained as part of the collective bargain agreement so you start at like a zero base and then increased like by 10%

123but um it it's bargained so the so the percentage of what they're paid is what's negotiated yes all right not whether they're a teacher or not no no but the but the collective bargain agreement does uh stipulate that if they are uh in the collective bargaining agreement that if they want that supplemental and they're qualified they can have is that is if there's an opening if there's an opening the the the the would it be certified or the classified would get first dibs at that and then if it's if nobody takes it then that non it's open to whomever okay so that's a collective bargaining yes thing and then the percentage that the math yes is what's collectively bargained yes and could you just uh give the percentage of what our I know the biggest

124percentage of our um budget is staff is that correct what's the percentage of that yeah most um places any employment the percent the highest percentage of your uh budget is always toward staff always toward human capital so it's about it's yeah it's a r it's right below 80 or rate on 80 and more of that will be coming in November when I do my updated F forecast for the spring submission and so I just think that's important to remember when we talk about telling our story this is not dollars and cents could we get a notebook this is human those are people yeah it's human capital it's their biggest expense it's I mean it's our students it's our staff those are our first um priorities and making sure that they are able to do what

125they need to do in the classroom and students are able to receive quality programming I mean we have some phenomenal program here and we don't want to have to see any of that go um so we do what we have to do it's a shame that there was so much deficit spending but we can't do anything about that and at this point um but I appreciate you yeah our goal is not to um I mean it has happened but our goal is how can we move forward uh from it um we know the reality but it's time to move forward and do what we need to do to make sure that we're never in that predicament again just I guess I just as both of you relatively new in your positions I commend you for

126helping us even though it's not the whole you dug thank you also would like to say that maybe I think there's been a deficit what since 2019 so the frees and the things that you're doing are probably freaking people out because it has never happened before um so maybe just making sure we're really communicating with the staff and the community why you know I didn't realize it was there was a deficit for that many years and so I'm certain other people didn't didn't know that as well so yeah we I definitely learned from my mistakes I appreciate it makes you wonder if the district at least deficit spent a lot less you know where would we be at and what could more could we have done for our students and at this point all we

127can do is move forward and not put ourselves back in that position correct yeah okay we're going to move on so what have we done so we have and we will continue to look at everything we are buying and entering into from cell phone bills removing desktop printers which are extremely costly RFP for Legal Services supplies and services being spent out of Grants cost savings on staff to purchase services like up here so we two of we save money through attrition after two of our uh employees left for better opportunities uh one was our gifted coordinator um so you can see the salary the benefits and that total package was $121,000 we replace it with a purchase service agreement with an es Educational Service Center for $445 and we're saving $77,000 just on moving that

128um employee who left through attrition and putting that into purchase services so you see that a huge savings right off the bat and then secondly um our public relations same set up uh but they had family benefits so that is extremely expensive so the benefits just some clarifying it's uh medical dental and retirement in there it's not just medical uh so then we replaced her with a purchase Service uh with her LS uh LS see excuse me uh for $31,000 so that's a total Savings of $128,000 now we don't always like to do this um but when there's ways we could save and keep good people uh this is sometimes the alternative so there we're always looking at ways we could save money I know sometimes might not look like it um but anytime I

129we have a contract coming up we're always looking at where can we save money our printer our printer service agreement will be coming up so we'll probably doing RFP for that um and also probably reduce the amount of copers we have in District um since we are moving for moving with the technology uh with Chromebooks uh so then we're also looking at actually I want to get ahead of myself so we'll move to the next slide okay so where do we go from here as you saw the deficit spending from 2010 was extreme so it's our lovely jobs Dr gold and I and the boards to figure out where do we go from here and how do we not go back and repeat how the past repeat itself because I certainly don't want that to

130happen so we're looking at new Revenue sources new levies any grant opportunities that are out there that could subsidize a general fund looking at all day kindergarten tuition now I don't want anybody to freak out or uh to go home and say this is what we're doing these are we're just laying out our options on the table and we're analyzing everything we can to bring money to the district introducing fees to the Intermediate Middle School I don't know if anybody knows but the only fees that the schools are at the high school so anytime of it's like a science art fee just a general fee uh they don't exist at elementary schools middle school or intermediate schools so unfortunately we're not in the situation where we just let everyone uh have all that stuff for

131free I'm not saying it'll be a huge fee but a science fee uh planning fee some small fees that help subsidize the cost to the district um looking at bringing back pay to participate for sports and then we're going to be looking we are currently looking at right size in the district looking at class ratios Staffing and transportation like Mrs suon said uh Staffing is our highest expense Capital human capital uh and transportation is another tremend expense Dr gold and I were at a professional development meeting on um Friday and the superintendent of Cargo Falls was talking about how with their new building they're going to bring back High School busing and she said that they go to about 18 plus different schools in district not a district so at a table discussion we were

132to have I was like f how many do you think it is and I was like oh like we were counting on our hand and I think we got like maybe five so I sent an email to this uh Transportation supervisor and I just started asking a bunch of questions like how many schools how many students does anybody want to take a guess of how many uh schools we transport to total in District and not a district okay great guesses so we have nine buildings in District and we go to 11 out of district schools so bring a total to 18 districts that's on 18 buildings that is our responsibility to take those students to which is a huge cost to us I just wanted to uh add that that is state law that we

133transport those students that is not our choice to transport students out of District anytime we offer busing to our students we have to offer busting to the district that the uh family would like the student to attend unless it's unreasonable uh there's laws around that but I won't talk about that right here I just kind of thought that was shocking uh So within one morning or one afternoon we have enough drivers on a good day to transport all of our students to 18 different buildings which is pretty phenomenal when you think about the grand scheme of things think ier this one is neomed when you when you say Transportation as a possible cost savings what does that look like so actually looking at routes that are taking place is there a way to um lessen

134the the routage that we have and also possibly looking at um maybe not transporting all of our students and then looking at the radius of where we are transp from a one M maybe a two so there's a lot of different things there and I also would say that we have to remember that the students who live in our district that we must transport um we get penalized if we don't transport those students appropriately uh in the district which then uh cost us money which we are following and have not been dinged but yeah if you don't follow it it's a fee per day you don't follow that that role yeah so Friday we learned a lot more about some Transportation um dos and don'ts which was insightful yeah we kind of skipped ahead to

135the questions before you hit that slide did not hold M I apologize so don't want to take up um a lot of time because I wanted to narrow it on certain topics and so the next time we do this we'll have other certain topics we could talk about just so it's not a ton of information being thrown at you at once so it's this could be easier digestible uh so you go back and reflect on anything and if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me I could email you or update everybody with those questions at a board meeting or the next time we do this so I hope this was helpful um just scratching the surface on some of these topics because there's so many other topics we could talk about

136because finan is involved with everything so thank you any final questions okay and then um at the second board meeting of the month uh I'm going to start taking a little bit of like five minutes to talk about a specific um it so the next one is going to be talking more about where the expenditures lie uh kind of what Mr Sheen was asking last meeting you know like what are the other Revenue sources and what all that data collects so I'll would take do a couple of each of the upcoming meetings and it'll be a ongoing document so once it's finished it'll be there for anybody to see so kind of be like teaching uh the community and the board about uh some school Finance so when you see it you can start making

137sense and start drawing conclusions thank you okay next item uh Neola policy packets C I will entertain a motion to approve so mov second any information to share questions yeah I have one on um and that 5781 the new the which is the new one the parents Bill of Rights um I would like to figure out how because apparently this is not a consent agenda item how this can be pulled um because the concerns that Mrs rll had brought up um I had some other concerns but she brought up one that was I think significant in having sex education at the elementary school u based on the fact of the way our inter elementary schools are set up so I I I guess for a sake of a a statement I'd like to have that

138that 5781 um Bill parents bills of Rights pulled from this packet I don't believe we can pull indiv idual policies from the packet do you have a specific change to the policy that you would yeah I would like um the uh the uh change to where there is not any of this um any any any type of I guess sexuality content being taught uh up through fourth grade so there's a state law House Bill 8 says that we don't teach uh sexuality content uh in the Elementary grades what happens in the uh Health courses is that the instruction includes uh abstinence and teaching uh students about uh not participating in any um sexual it's more like sexual health instruction uh around those type of things abstinence um um not requiring uh and if there is

139something where a parent wants to have consent uh once they get into the upper grades then that's when you get into your opt out policy uh they go a little bit more uh in detail the in the high school of course uh because the students are older and can can handle it more differently but miss reel I'll be more than happy to sit with you and and go over that I wanted to catch you before you left out of the meeting yes but it's more about absence that is taking place um at the um younger grades and those those standards for um sexual health education those are coming down to us from the state level correct yes yes so yeah like I said it talks about abstaining um teaching them about physical psychological emotional side

140effects if they were to participate in um something like that outside of marriage uh STDs uh those type of things uh and Advising them that if there is um sexual contact with a person under the age of 16 so it's really all about abstinence that's what the this the instruction is about but why would a nine-year-old need to know any of that okay you House Bill eight there is nothing happening in the elementary school okay all right thank you thank God just to clarify all of this is coming down from State mandates yes these are State mandates and so what has happened in the parent Bill of Rights is that they outline um as U Mr reel talked about they uh outline the um sexual ideology or whatever they're trying to Define that as uh

141in this particular bill because there are places that that may come up as students get older and but not in the elementary school and I I assume the the policy in question was written um in response to that new law and in accordance with the provisions that are in the Ohio RIS code right now um there's an effective date isn't that coming up very quickly ail 9th um April 9th okay and the Ohio Revised Code that goes with this uh I can just share is 33136 and 6011 those are the two Ohio Revised codes around sex education can you please repeat those please 33136 and 6011 this is the the um the leg deals with sexual education laws okay just the other question I having that policy and and I think she touched on it

142but it was something that I um highlighted it said school district and this is on page two of three uh one two three four five six the seventh paragraph okay it's about a third of the way down it says School District Personnel will not discourage or prohibit parental notification of or involvement decisions affecting the student's mental health emotional physical health or well-being who is confirming that verifies that who is having that conversation with the staff counselors whomever um that they don't have this uh you know this that they are not to discourage uh from parental notification so if you recall at the last meeting when we were talking about these policies I Shar that legal counsil met with all of our counseling's um um staff to go over these new policies that are coming out

143and the impact and the role they play in that we will be meeting with counselors again because we will have to provide a list of what they call healthc care services which are also identified in this particular bill which will be made Ava available to parents and so therefore if they are not interested in those Health Care Services they will be able to opt out of those services thank you m you're welcome any further questions roll call please East Jenkins hi r i Shen ionic hi wind I next on our next on our agenda are some field trips uh for some students we owe some congratulations to uh do I have a motion so moved second these are our students who will be traveling uh because they make they have become state qualifiers uh so

144we want to congratulate those students in gymnastic bowling and wrestling and I'm telling you I need to meet this young man that uh Bowls because he can bowl a 265 that is unbelievable and then one of our uh gymnast um she is uh qualifying in gymnastics and in swimming uh so she's in uh two state finals so congratulations to all of those students and we wish you well at State any questions comments roll call please e Jenkins hi mer hi Sheen hi ponic hi wind I I will now entertain an emotion to adjourn so moved second roll call East Jenkins I mer hi Shen ionic hi wind hi meeting is adjourned at 8:16